


And the Roses Fall

by Morningstar96



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: A plush dragon makes an appearance, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Kara needs ten thousand hugs, Kara's not coping well with Krypton until Lena comes over, Lena Luthor Knows Kara Danvers Is Supergirl, Lena is extra, Unexpected lingerie, lena is a big softie, soft very soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-14 23:27:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18486607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morningstar96/pseuds/Morningstar96
Summary: In which Lena may have gone overkill to comfort a forlorn Kryptonian.Very soft, very fluffy.





	And the Roses Fall

They were iconic, really.

A Super and a Luthor. One would not think they were capable of even being good acquaintances, let alone the best of friends- and oh, Kara was the best friend Lena had, even with the likes of Alex and Brainy worming her way into her untrusting heart- yet here they were.

Lena Luthor and Supergirl were both National City icons in their own way. It was now no secret that they frequently crossed paths, since Supergirl often posted herself as Lena’s guard during galas and press conferences. Also, nobody had to know that Lena had, in fact, had the balcony on her office built specifically for Kara, or that they frequently spent movie nights and sleepovers together.

That was theirs to know, and theirs alone. Even Alex underestimated how much time they actually spent together, and they were rather proud of themselves for deceiving a highly trained special agent who’d spent most of her life specifically looking out for Kara’s well-being. And even though Lena was slowly warming up to Kara’s friends, and even making a few of them herself amongst her employees, she discovered that she was becoming protective of her time with Kara, and jealous of those who flirted with her.

It was really starting to become a problem.

‘Lena, are you okay?’ Kara looked concerned, that familiar crinkle forming between her brows as she scanned Lena up and down. Lena’s heart fluttered again as she wondered if Kara was using X-ray vision on her.

‘I am fine,’ Lena replied, though her voice sounded too stiff even to her.

They were in one of their favourite backstreet cafés, one they’d discovered on their many outings, and Kara had been accosted by a pretty young barista who’d started flirting with her. Uncharacteristic jealously boiled in Lena’s stomach again, a jealousy that she tried desperately to tamp down because what right did she have to be jealous of a very single Kara flirting with other people? Kara was allowed to pursue who she wanted, and if Lena was still too much of a coward to acknowledge her own feelings on the matter, well, that was her own fault and not Kara’s. Besides, Kara deserved someone better than her. Lena’s best role here would be to thoroughly destroy anyone who wanted to hurt her darling friend, and to support Kara with pursuing any happy relationship.

If she could do that, then she would die happy.

Because Kara Zor-el deserved nothing less than pure happiness after every traumatic thing she’s been though, and Lena would gladly be her bodyguard against all who would manipulate and wound her.

(Lena remembered cradling Kara as she cried herself to sleep months ago, after she fled to L-Corp late at night with the physical bruises and emotional damage of living with Mon-el. Lena had stayed with her the whole night, had let her take refuge in her apartment for days afterward, had immediately sicced the DEO on Mon-el so he that would face the big-sisterly wrath of one horrifically angry Alexandra Danvers).

‘You’re not fine,’ Kara insisted, and honestly, her perceptiveness and emotional intuition made Lena love her all the more. Sure, her uncanny perceptiveness was almost definitely from her inhuman senses, but it was nice to think that it was simply from her being _really_ in tune with Lena instead.

Lena tried to supress a blush, tried not to glare at the back of the retreating barista who’d been openly flirting with her best friend, but Kara was on a roll, and her impeccable senses were fully trained on Lena like a bloodhound after a scent. A very human Lena who couldn’t control everything her body did.

‘You’re blushing,’ Kara said, watching her with apparent fascination as she slid back into the seat of her side of the booth.

Lena looked away, blushing even harder. Her fingers gripped her mug with a completely unnecessary force. ‘I am not!’

Kara smiled- that goddamn smile that was somehow addictive, like Lena would possibly die if she didn’t see it at least once a week. ‘Alright, tell me who you’re thinking about.’

Lena blinked. ‘What?’

‘You obviously have a crush! Your heart keeps picking up speed every now and then, like you’re thinking of them, and you keep blushing. So, who is it?’

Lena just didn’t know how to tell Kara that _she was thinking about her all along._ How do you even explain that to your best friend? Lena shook herself. Honestly, this was ridiculous. She was acting like some schoolgirl mooning after a handsome boy. Surely a twenty-four year old would handle herself better than this? Except Lena had pretty much the same amount of experience as the aforementioned young schoolgirl. It was Lilian who introduced her to potential suitors (she never made it past the first date), it was her family who expected her to be with some rich man from a high-ranking family (she dismissed her lack of attraction as due to her investment in her study- that was definitely it, and had nothing to do with the fact that her erotic dreams consisted primarily of ladies), it was her own internalised toxicity that prevented her from making a move every time a daring woman attempted to flirt with her.

So honestly, could Lena really be blamed for being a complete mess in this particular arena, even when she wielded strict control and power of the rest of her life? (She doesn’t want to count the times Lilian or Lex returned like vengeful zombies to bring her back down. Oh, no. Lena’s been taking her therapist’s advice by actually focusing on the positives, on the things that she actually can control. _The horror.)_

‘Nobody,’ she said tightly, jutting her chin out in her usual display of authority.

Kara wasn’t convinced, but she just shook her head in amusement and let the subject drop. ‘Suit yourself then, babe.’

The pesky butterflies in Lena’s stomach erupted again at the term of endearment. It had started happening in recent months- Lena had begun it by referring to Kara with _darling,_ or _sweetheart,_ or _Cherie._ Kara had responded in kind with the likes of _babe,_ and _honey,_ and a Kryptonian word that Lena had recently learned translated directly to _love._ The whole situation was entirely too much for Lena’s poor heart. She figured that if she wasn’t killed by an assassin sent by Lex or Lilian, then she might just go into cardiac arrest and die soon anyway, because her heart just would not behave around Kara.

‘Oh! Is it James again? Do you want to get back with him now that he’s not being so much of an ass anymore?’

Lena just blinked again. Truthfully, she hadn’t thought of James as anything much more than a friend for a long time now. Perhaps she’d never even harboured romantic feelings for him in the first place- she’d just jumped into his arms because she was craving emotional and physical intimacy, and he offered it. ‘No, no, I’m quite over him.’

And that was that for the day on that particular subject.

 

That Friday dawned as normally as usual. Well, as normally as possible for Lena Luthor, in any case. There was a minor incident where someone tried to poison her (again), but Lena was long since used to such incidents, and had taken to keeping a personal chemistry kit with her when buying her morning coffees. She’d just tested her coffee on a whim, sighed when the results showed positive for dimethylmercury, and carefully disposed of it before replacing it with one from an internal café she knew was safely owned by L-Corp.

Just another day in the life of a 24/7 victim of possible assassination.

‘Lena!’

Lena pivoted on her heels, face automatically breaking into a smile when she found Kara bounding toward her like an enthusiastic Golden Retriever. It was incredibly striking how someone who had gone through so much, had literally watched her die before her eyes, could remain so full of compassion and hope. Not just striking, either; it was humbling, and Lena sometimes felt guilty for being miserable about her own life when Kara had battered and bruised in unimaginable ways, yet still sprung up to her feet to face each day.

‘Kara, darling! Hi!’

 Kara stalled, face slightly flushed. Apparently she was little lost for words, which somehow happened frequently. An odd trait for a reporter.

‘Kara?’ Lena prompted. She loved making time for her best friend, but she really did have to prepare for a board meeting in an hour.

‘Oh! Right. Uhm, do you want to have lunch and visit the museum later?’

Lena found herself nodding, even though she had several meetings today. She’d just get Jess to move one of them tomorrow, and damn the consequences.

_Damnit, Lena. You never put your work in second place, what is wrong with you?_ But Kara had that effect on her, and she honestly couldn’t say no to the woman. ‘Sounds great!’

Kara spread her arms in an offer of a hug. Lena softened. Despite being a highly tactile person, Kara hard learned pretty quickly that Lena was not, and always let her make the first move. It was a strange feeling, knowing that Kara resected her boundaries like that when virtually nobody else did.

Lena stepped forward and melted into the hug, As much as she loved her personal boundaries, she was only human, and very touch-starved one at that. She nuzzled into Kata’s shoulder, sinking into her Kryptonian body heat with relief, and they didn’t let go for some time. Seeing them hug like this was a common sight in National City, and certain tabloids and Instagram pages were starting to wonder at the nature of their relationship. That was totally not compounded by the fact that Lena’s own Instagram page consisted almost entirely of selfies Kara had made them take together.

‘You alright?’ Kara murmured, apparently sensing Lena’s need for closeness as she pulled them even tighter.

‘M’fine now,’ Lena mumbled into Kara’s shoulder. 

‘Hey, lovebirds! Knock it off! Ponytail, get on with new stadium story!’

They swivelled around to find Snapper striding back out of the L-Corp lobby. Lena stared blankly at his retreating form in shock.

‘Since when does Snapper find you here?’ she said, extricating herself from Kara’s embrace and frowning.

‘Since he found out I’ve been taking refuge in your office whenever he’s mad or I need somewhere quiet to work,’ Kara admitted.

Lena couldn’t help the blush spreading across her face, making her feel more like a smitten girl than ever. If she could provide Kara with a safe space to work and relax, then honestly her life couldn’t be all that worthless.

‘Well, you know you’re allowed to come up to my office whenever you want,’ Lena said, suddenly finding it important to remind her of that fact.

Kara waved her words off, looking bashful. ‘It’s _your_ office, Lena. You need your privacy too, I’m not gonna crash in every time I feel bad.’

‘You can,’ Lena said quietly. ‘You can come to me whenever you like, however big or small your problem is.’

Kara’s lip trembled slightly, her eyes darkening and looking fragile as glass, and Lena just _knew_ that she had such a problem right now. ‘We’ll talk this afternoon,’ she said, putting a comforting hand on Kara’s shoulder.

Kara just nodded, lips tightening, and an unspoken understanding sparked between them. They both had jobs to get to, but Lena knew that when the time was right, Kara would open up.

 

Lena had some spare time between her morning meetings, and with her brain winding down a bit, the question of what was bothering Kara kept plaguing her. She furrowed her brows as she pored over a business report, and then an idea suddenly hit her.

_Is today the anniversary of Krypton’s death?_

She spent the next hour making calculations and double-checking them with her astrophysics textbooks from uni, her heart and stomach sinking all the while as she kept coming to the same conclusion: this was, indeed, the anniversary of Krypton’s death.

_Oh, darling._ No wonder Kara had that strange cracked look in her eyes, that unusual droopy haggardness in her posture. She pressed the button on her comms system. ‘Jess, cancel my next two meetings. I have some errands to attend to.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

Lena barely resisted rolling her eyes in affection. She’d told Jess numerous times not to call her ma’am, but Jess insisted on the formality. ‘You’re my boss,’ she insisted.

‘And you’re my friend,’ Lena would reply, every time.

She’d always catch Jess smiling after that.

Lena spent the rest of her morning “running her errands”, by which she meant gathering as many gifts as possible for Kara. By the end of it, she had bags full of Kara’s favourite brand of frozen potstickers, some Disney movies she knew she still didn’t have on DVD, a bouquet of her favourite flowers, a dragon plushie, and a bag of fancy lingerie that Lena really shouldn’t have bought, but she knew Kara would look amazing in it, and Lena knew she’d been looking for fancy lingerie anyway. Finally satisfied with her gift haul, she made her way to the National City Natural History Museum.

Except she didn’t quite make it inside. She checked her phone on instinct as she left the car and thanked her driver, only to find a slew of messages from Kara. Her gut sank in trepidation as she read through them- an increasingly hectic and incomprehensible mess of words that no doubt reflected the Kryptonian’s mental state, and that she felt awful about being unable to meet at the museum. Lena punched the dial button, waiting fretfully as the tone rang through several times before the line picked up.

‘Kara! Is everything okay?’ Lena knew it wasn’t, but it seemed as good an introductory line as any. ‘Do you want me to come over?’

She could hear Kara take in a few stuttering breaths before replying. ‘Please.’

‘I’m on my way.’

Lena practically launched back into the car, telling her driver to immediately make for Kara’s apartment. It was a mark of how often she went there that he didn’t even plug in the address, he just pulled out of the car park and went.

She really needed to give him another raise.

‘Kara?’ she said, approaching  her door after taking the lift to her floor. She didn’t bother knocking, knowing that she’d hear her; sure enough, the door creaked open. And there was Kara, looking more lost and broken than she’d ever seen her.

‘Oh, Kara,’ Lena breathed, dropping her bags and opening her arms immediately. Kara melted into the hug; they stood there for a few minutes in the doorway, Lena holding her more tightly than could remember holding anyone for a very long time, running a hand soothingly through Kara’s hair.

‘Come on,’ she said softly, extricating herself and picking the bags back up. ‘Let’s take this inside.’

Kara helped bring in the goods, and they settled at the kitchen counter, Kara leaning despondently on the counter.

‘I’d done some calculations this morning,’ Lena ventured.

Kara stirred. ‘Oh.’ She frowned. ‘You could have just asked Alex.’

Lena blinked. ‘Right. That… may have been the easier way to go about it.’

Kara just nodded mutely, tears silently streaming down her cheeks. Her chin trembled.

‘Oh, darling. Do you want to talk about it?’

‘C-can you just hold me?’

They spent the next half-hour on the couch, Lena feeling remarkably strange as she witnessed Kara curl into her, face nuzzled into her chest and looking smaller than she had ever seen her. Lena could barely breathe, not wanting to disturb her best friend, and a strange sort of awe came over her. She was a Luthor- someone to be avoided, somebody you didn’t seek out for comfort, someone who was cold and dangerous and clever. Yet here was Kara, possibly the most powerful woman on the planet, lying completely vulnerable and trusting with her. Kara, who had to be so strong and selfless and at the beck and call of her entire city every minute of every day, who somehow found it in her to be weak and vulnerable with Lena Luthor.

This, Lena knew, was special. This was a goddess laying herself bare and exposed at the feet of a demon.

Finally, Kara raised her head from Lena’s tear-soaked chest. Lena cradled her face, gently wiping away the tears. ‘Shall I get you a drink?’

Kara nodded, and hiccuped. Her eyes were red and puffy, but the crystal blue of her irises shone as strongly as ever. ‘Coke, please.’

Lena resisted the urge to press her lips to Kara’s forehead. Instead, she went up and poured them both glasses of Coke.  Not Kara’s normal drink, but after all the crying, Lena wasn’t surprised that she’d want something cold to cool her down.

They sat at the kitchen island in silence for a few minutes. And then Kara slowly began to tell her about life on Krypton, about her parents and Argo City and the horror of watching it all burn and crumble before her eyes as she was shot into the endless dark void of space. Lena learned that Kara Zor-el- a goddess among mortals- was still subject to panic attacks, that she feared losing her foster mother and sister, that she was still hurt by how Kal-el left her with the Danvers instead of taking her in himself, that she still craved his love and respect because he was the only living biological relative she had.

By the end of it, it was Lena who was crying silently while Kara’s well of tears had dried up.

‘I’ll never get over you,’ Lena said in wonder, hand trembling as she took Kara’s. ‘After everything you’ve been through, you’ve remained so strong and pure.’ She entwined their fingers and held her gaze. ‘I’m just glad you feel safe enough with me to let go once on a while.’

Kara gave a watery sort of smile. ‘I do. I really do. And I’m not that pure, Lena,’ she added, half-jokingly.

Lena grinned. ‘Oh, I’m well aware we all have our dark sides.’ Her tone took on something flirtatious, for flirting with Kara was her automatic way of easing any tension between them. ‘I do wonder how you explore yours.’

That got the blush she’d intended to provoke. ‘Lena!’

But in the seconds afterwards, their gazes hooked once more and Kara studied her seriously. Lena squirmed under the scrutiny, not sure what Kara was looking for in her eyes, but knowing that she’d find it. She was acutely aware of her heart thudding away frantically in her chest, the poor thing, and acutely aware that she was sitting across the island from a fully-powered Kryptonian who could definitely hear it.

_Fully-powered Kryptonian._

Oh, god, now that conjured up some delicious images that Lena should really not be thinking about while staring into her friend’s eyes.

‘I have something for you,’ she remembered, finally tearing her gaze from Kara’s. She reached down for the bags and spread them out on the island, pulling out the plush dragon first. ‘I found this one in Build-a-Bear, and I should really get these potstickers into the freezer before they go funny, and these flowers are from the same florist I went to when I filled your office with flowers, do you remember that?’-

But she was rudely interrupted by Kara, who wandered over to her side of the island while she was talking, and who was now watching her with the strangest, most vulnerable look in her eyes. Lena faltered, not quite sure what was happening as Kara approached her as if in slow motion. Had she done something odd again? She really wasn’t experienced with this whole best friend thing, perhaps it was a little overkill to buy so many gifts, and was Kara mad at her for that? Lena swallowed hard when Kara paused barely a foot away from her. A pregnant pause laden with the things unspoken between them, the things that had been building up over the past couple of years in the form of gifts and lunch dates and brunches and sleepover and food-sharing and shared looks. Lena’s heart skipped another few beats.

And then Kara was kissing her, completely enthusiastically, pressing her against the fake marble counter. Lena stiffened in surprise for a moment. She hadn’t expected this, had never expected Kara to ever want to kiss her like she was now, like she was something precious and adored. Lena could just feel Kara start to pull away as if taking her freeze-up as a rejection, but before she could, Lena curled her fingers into the fabric of Kara’s sweater and pulled her closer, moaning at the heat of Kara’s body pressing her further into the counter. She felt deliciously encased, and suddenly she couldn’t get enough- she nipped slightly at Kara’s bottom lip, making her gasp. Lena took the opportunity to lick into her mouth, both of them moaning as their tongues met. They were like this for several minutes, both of them fully engrossed in each other, Lena whimpering faintly with need as Kara slid her hands under her blouse. Eventually they broke apart, panting slightly, both flushed and with hugely dilated pupils.

‘So- uh’- Kara glanced down, noticing the last unopened bag. ‘Oh, there’s another one!’

Lena swallowed hard as she watched Kara delicately unwrap the contents of the bag.

_Oh no, it’s the lingerie! Friends don’t usually give each other lingerie, do they?_

She watched on in a strange anticipation as Kara’s eyes widened and her blush reddened even more. ‘Oh,’ she breathed, extracting a lush red and black set complete with bra, panties and garters. ‘Oh, my…’

Their gazes met.

Kara’s mouth spread into a cocky grin. ‘Do you want me to try this on, Miss Luthor?’


End file.
